Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting - PI Buzz

The North Carolina Sex Offender Registry has added email notification and mapping. Search by partial name, city, county, address or physical coordinates to retrieve a list of offenders. Select a profile, then click on the mapping symbol. Expand the view to include registrants within a 1, 3 or 5 mile radius. Hover over the icon to view the other nearby registrants’ photos and addresses. Then request email notification whenever a sex offender is registered at an address within that radius. The search function also covers sex offenders who are incarcerated.

Montana driving record histories and vehicle license information can now be obtained from the State of Montana Web site. Both are only available with with an account, subject to a permissible reason, outlined in the subscriber agreement.

…Personal Information may be requested as a part of Agreed Data only for the following purposes:
A. By any insurer or insurance support organization in connection with claims
investigation activities, anti-fraud activities, rating, or underwriting.
B. In the normal course of business by a legitimate business or its agents,
employees or contractors:
1. To verify the accuracy of personal information submitted by the individual
who is the subject of the record to the business or its agents, employees
or contractors; and
2. If such information is not correct, to obtain the correct information, but only for the purposes of preventing fraud by pursuing legal remedies against, or recovering on a debt or security interest against an insured or applicant.
3. To verify vehicle information.
C. By an employer or its agent or insurer to obtain or verify information relating to a holder of a commercial driver’s license required under the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 (49 U.S.C. Part 383)
D. For use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral
proceeding in any Federal, State, or local court or agency or before any selfregulatory
body, including the service of process…

[Via TVC]

Booking photos of those who are arrested but not charged or found not guilty must be removed from Web sites maintained by county Sheriff offices, according to an opinion issued by the Alabama Attorney General.

Plot parcels and geographic features on the Tucson Arizona Department of Transportation GIS parcel viewer. Search by address, real property owner name, name of school or intersection. Mastering the map functions can take some time if you’re not versed in the Autodesk program (which requires the Internet Explorer browser), so you might want to consult their map viewer guide. The easiest way to plot a parcel is to search by the owner name, address or parcel number from this page. Then select the link, “zoom to parcel”, which highlights the parcel on the map. Select “detail information” to link directly to permit history for that parcel and recorded documents.

Print and save maps with the features you specify. The Tucson Department of Transportation also produces other maps related to traffic and geographic land characteristics.

The Department of Justice lists clemency recipients from 1989 to 2001. Name, type of relief, year sentenced and offense are included, and for some years, the federal district in which the charges were filed.

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole lists names of inmates with upcoming parole or pardon hearings. Idaho Commission Of Pardons and Parole has a month-by-month record of hearings and decisions since 1999 with the inmate name and Department of Corrections ID number. The decisions record also notes reasons for the action taken. Montana has dispositions from 1999.

Nevada posts a PDF of inmates under parole consideration.

Some other parole boards are listed here and here.
State archives maintain older records of paroles and pardons.

A complaint about Social Security numbers exposed on a federal government contract and grants awards online database has lead to their removal from the Census database and from FedSpending.org, OMB Watch, which operates the database of financial awards, has removed the ID number field, which listed some Social Security numbers.

At the request of the government, OMB Watch is willing to temporarily redact the Federal Award ID data field for the entire FAADS database if the government agrees to provide a plan for updating the unique identifier without personally identifiable information within 30 days.

As reported:

Federal Database Exposes Social Security Numbers, New York Times.

Agencies expose 100,000 Social Security numbers on Web, Government Executive.

The Sunlight Foundation background on the OMB Watch, New York Times and federal agencies exchanges is well worth a read.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department crime mapping program plots crime incidents that have occurred over the previous 3 months. Search by type of crime, address, landmark and within a radius to get reported crimes plotted on a map. Label and print a color PDF map with icons designating type of crime and location.

The Coral Gables Police Department has a searchable database of vehicle accident reports and incident reports. Search accident, arrest or incident events by location, name, report number or date. A sortable list is returned with date, type of contact, location and whether an report image is available. Report images are available for accidents and incidents but not arrests. But arrests at a particular location may have been proceeded by an incident involving the same subject, for which a report image would be online. Name of contacted individuals are listed. See image example.

Philadelphia will be the first region in Pennsylvania to implement an automated inmate release telephone notification. The service, which just covers local jails, will be available to anyone, not just crime victims, when it goes into operation in June 2007. The Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAVIN) alert program will add the other counties over the next 18 months, and may later add state inmates.

The Houston Independent School District is the most recent Texas school district to post its payments to vendors online. Expenses can be identified by vendor but not by type of expenditure. Other districts have some payment information online as well.

A law under consideration in the Nevada legislature would prevent sealing of court cases involving high-profile litigants, which the judges had been doing, according to a survey by the Nevada Appeal.

There are many commercial services that offer a free FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number) search by company name across multiple states simultaneously. All return different results and amount of detail. Below are screenshots of a company name search in 3 different FEIN services. You can also view the results at this page.

The free portion of the service FEINSearch returns a list of companies with the corresponding city and state. The results list of companies on KnowX also only shows city and state but the list is longer than the FEINSearch, possibly because of redundancy. A search by name on freeERISA provides the FEIN, company address and phone number, whether the address is current and the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code number. Registration entitles you to 3 free searches. The freeERISA site elucidates the sources for the FEIN material, which is helpful for understanding the limitations of the database and why all FEINs aren’t listed.

Here are some new, merely worthy of a mention and updated search portals, search engines and databases.

Genealogy

RootsWeb - Newspaper Indexes
Search for the appearance of personal names in some historical newspapers.

Public Records Portals
SearchSystems - New Web site links. This site collects links to searchable public records databases and non governmental databases that collect various types of information. The “Newsites” page is updated several times a week.

Search Engines

American Legal Media has revamped its search engine, which primarily searches sites within the Law.com network. LawQuest may be useful for identifying articles and case decisions but much of the content is restricted to subscribers. [Via LegalSites]

Perform a name search at Voompeople to find employment and business associations. This can be a means of doing a name search for officers in a corporation, particularly useful in states (like California) where the Secretary of State corporation entity lookup is only by corporate name.

Private investigators may discover new research sources and approaches reading, Gathering Competitive Intelligence for Litigators and Business Lawyers (April 2007, Wisconsin Lawyer), Tony Chan’s roundup of online personal information databases and Web sites for the legal field. Much of the article is directed to attorneys, and those in Wisconsin, related to legal business development or fee-based data sources. But he also mentions a few of the free public records through which you can find people in the military, verify a professional license or disciplinary actions, and develop competitive intelligence. The article also footnotes a posting I did on the trends in restricting access to public records.

On the theme of redacting public records, Arizona legislation SB 1169 is still pending. This bill , would require the Maricopa County Recorder to remove Social Security numbers from documents on its Web site and the other counties would do the same at the request of an individual, starting in 2009. Reported in the Arizona Daily Star, AZ bill keeps SS numbers off Internet.

The Nevada County, California District Attorney has ordered the county to keep all police reports out of court case files available to the public. Police reports generally are found in criminal court case files although an agency is not required to release records it has that are generated by another government entity.

However, it appears that the Nevada County District Attorney was prompted to make this change, not by dedication to the law, but to protect one of their own.

The action comes after details of a drug arrest from a police report were published in The Union last week. Former Nevada County Animal Control Officer Arlene Winstead asked a narcotics officer to conceal evidence during her arrest, according to a sheriff’s incident report.

But police agencies often are not cooperative in releasing information that is covered by the Public Records Act. As the Californians Aware, Audit Report 2007: Public Access to Law Enforcement Information revealed, most police agencies don’t comply with public records law requests for information.

The Texas Secretary of State Athlete Agent search has been added to the other business activity registration database searches at the Texas SOS Web site. The other types of entities that can be searched by name or business name are: Debt Collector Bonds, Health Spas, Public Safety Solicitations, Telephone Solicitors, Veterans Solicitations and Notary Public.

Search by partial first or last name, business name, address or telephone number.

Search the Pennsylvania Department of State Registration database of lobbyists and lobbying firms, and the organizations they represent. A full or partial name or firm name returns a detail of the lobbying disclosure form, required for those who lobby elected officials in Pennsylvania on behalf of companies or organizations.
[Article: Pennsylvania Lobbying Registrations Searchable Online]

The flow of federal campaign money can be seen by utilizing multiple data collection sites. Real Time Investigations shows how to piece together information from the newly launched Office of Management and Budget Congressional Earmarks database with other public records expenditure sources to match politicians with the lobbyists and the companies that benefit. Then go to FedSpending to identify the Congressional district that was the primary recipient of the funds.

The income received by executives in publicly traded Standard & Poor’s Super 1500 corporations is digested in the AFL-CIO PayWatch database.
[ via beSpacific]

Corporate malefactors angle to “clean up” mentions of their names in court records. The powerful and the fearful each have their reasons… From AP:

Residential Funding wants Heffernan’s claims about who stiffed employees and which name names, stricken from the court record.

The GMAC unit, Residential Funding Co., is the largest secured creditor in Mortgage Lenders’ Chapter 11 case.

In court documents in March, Residential Funding said it wants to erase “scandalous” statements Heffernan made while fighting criminal prosecution in Connecticut for failing to pay employees up to $2.5 million in wages owed when Mortgage Lenders Network went bankrupt Feb. 5.

Finally, the Florida Supreme Court has addressed the practice within some county trial courts of removing certain dockets and files from public view. From AP:

The Florida Supreme Court issued emergency rules Thursday designed to stop the improper sealing of court records and dockets in civil cases, but delayed a decision on whether they also should cover criminal cases.

The unsigned, unanimous opinion requires court clerks to post notices on their Web sites and courthouses after a record is sealed, and allows citizens to then challenge those decisions. Courts are also prohibited from making case, docket and other identifying numbers confidential.

The privacy advocates are on the warpath to close access to online images of UCC filings, state by state. Last week the Arizona Secretary of State removed the Uniform Commercial Code filing documents from the Web site after a privacy fanatic apparently claimed that the site was a place that criminals trolled for Social Security numbers. Is there any proof for this?

Although new UCC financing statements in Massachusetts have the Social Security numbers removed from online documents there is pressure, which the Secretary of State has so far resisted, to take down the site completely.

This is an issue that has pitted the interests of consumer lobbyists against those who might otherwise be allies: the champions of open government. Public records that are accessible to all, free, and unaltered by the government are under threat by regulation, statute and public hysteria over a misplaced fear of identity theft. Surely there is a way we can keep these records available on the Internet for legitimate business and research purposes without aggravating the problem of identity theft. What do you think? Are public records a serious, documented contributor to identity fraud?

Charities and non profit organizations are monitored by state agencies and the Internal Revenue Service, and tracked by many private advocacy groups. Even if you’re not particularly interested in a specific charitable organization you might want to know the people and other entities with which they’re associated. Business journalism reporter Bill Smith developed a guide to analyzing the IRS 990 forms that nonprofits are required to submit. He also links to the advocacy groups, Charity Navigator, BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Guide Star where you can get the document images of the IRS 990 forms filed by the charities. Ministry Watch and The Foundation Center have background on nonprofits that aren’t required to file IRS form 990.

Bookmark this IRS site that lists links to each states’ charity regulator, either the Attorney General or Secretary of State, where you’ll be able to lookup details on the charitable organization.

Search for a tax deductible organization by partial name in all 50 states at once.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has instituted new rules that abolish fees for petitions to unseal cases. However, the rules require notification of the case parties by the person seeking to unseal the records. The court also ruled that financial statements are public records but that they could be sealed!

Meanwhile, Maryland legislators are considering whether to add juveniles as young as 13 years old to the sex offender registry upon conviction of a qualifying crime. Most states keep the names of juvenile defendants confidential. Another proposal would create a “no sex offenders zone” of a half mile around school yards, which other states have found is counter productive. Apparently the registrants become transient because, it turns out, if you draw a half mile ring around every school there’s nowhere for them to live!

The Colorado Secretary of State has removed UCC document images from the Web site until such time as the Social Security numbers are redacted. The Secretary of State intends to issue new UCC forms that will not include the option of listing Social Security numbers. The policy also suspends bulk electronic sales of the Department’s UCC database. Colorado joins California, which recently instituted the same measures, along with Oregon, Mississippi, Missouri and a half dozen other states

In favorable public records’ news, the Oregon Secretary of State has expanded their online Business Registry Database, adding a search by individual name of Agent, Partner, Manager, President and Secretary.

The Vermont Secretary of State has introduced a “Right To Know” database of resources and laws related to Vermont public records. Search by statutory language, an agency or department’s name, exemption category or exemption and agency.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that Board of Bar Overseers and Office of Bar Counsel are judicial agencies which are exempt from the public records provisions. Only documents held by government agencies within the executive branch are subject to the public records act.

Massachusetts criminal show cause hearings will remain closed, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial decided.

The NASD securities broker database interface has been reworked and is much more usable for private investigators who are validating a license or developing background on a company or individual. The NASD describes itself as “the primary private-sector regulator of America’s securities industry.” In the past, a license lookup required the broker’s name and the brokerage, but now a search can be done by individual name only.

The National Association of Securities Dealers BrokerCheck is an online database of registered securities brokers and registered securities firms. The search mechanism isn’t as friendly as I would like, still with remnants of the former site. If you want to search last name only, select the basic search. This returns last names with that string of letters. The advanced search option allows you to search by partial first and last name, but you must enter letters into both fields, then select “begins with”, “sounds like” or “exact match”. Select “View Full PDF Report” in the left column to view details of disciplinary actions and disputes. The full report also lists employment, unemployment, non securities employment, military service and education for the past 10 years.

Detailed reports are also available on the firm name search but you have to request a NASD report if a firm’s registration was terminated before 1999. Call the NASD to get further details by phone.

CareerOneStop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, is an occupation and industry database for job searchers, but it also provides links to all 50 states’ occupational licensing Web sites. Search by occupation, industry or keyword to find professional license and certification descriptions and links to the regulating agency.

Organizations that issue certifications, even for occupations that may not be licensed by a particular state, are also included. The certifying organizations maintain online name databases of their members, another option to verify field of employment. Note: not all certifying associations are listed for any one occupation, so be sure to check other sources that might perform the same function and also list their members.

The Iowa County Recorders Association operates a unique statewide database of Recorded documents. Real property and all other documents filed with the Recorder offices in Iowa counties can be searched from one portal. Select the county and documents you want to retrieve and then search by last or first name. Perform a single search for many or all 99 counties, and search for multiple document types; obtain index details and document images. Free registration is required. Full access requires Internet Explorer browser. The site also has links to individual county Web pages.

The State of Iowa Web site is well organized and has an extensive collection of links to state agencies, searchable by agency name and type of information. An array of Iowa state government documents are available online and can be located through the site’s search engine. Review the list of online services to link to databases of campaign finance reports, court records, corporations, unclaimed property, unidentified persons, state highway accident reports and much more.

Bookmark this link to a list of all agencies for each county. There’s quite a variance in the extensiveness of the online information that each county provides. The Cerro Gordo County Web site is technologically current, providing RSS for Public Notices (with documents) and News. Be sure to check each county Web site regularly for additions to their online records.

City guides, city government sites and Iowa services can be accessed from this commercial directory.

The Iowa Freedom of Information Council has an Open Records Handbook and other resources related to the public records law and access.

The Iowa State University has state and local government links to directories sorted by topic.

Some Web sites are valuable to private investigators for purposes other than their intended use. Craigslist is one of those, sometimes revealing background and activity on your subject. Small town newspapers often carry obituaries, police blotters and public notices not otherwise easily accessible.

Do any of you Iowans have favorite personal information Web sites?

The abundance of state legislation restricting access to public records is depressing for open government advocates. But the head in the sand approach won’t preserve access, so here are some of the Bills under consideration by state legislatures.

New Hampshire

HB 269, An act prohibiting “pretexting” as a means of obtaining personally identifiable information, would invoke civil penalties for any use of pretexting to obtain any personally identifying information.

HB 686 would prohibit anyone from electronically tracking another person without that person’s consent.

HB 729 includes a prohibition on retaining or storing personal information on drivers’ licenses in an electronic form.

Arizona

Legislation introduced in Arizona aims to remove all victim information from police reports before they’re released to journalists, attorneys, private investigators or the public in general. SB 1286 states: “A victim’s contact and identifying information that is obtained, compiled or reported by a law enforcement agency shall be redacted by the originating agency in publicly accessible records pertaining to the criminal case involving the victim. “

SB1286 has other flaws as well. By requiring law enforcement to keep victim information out of public records (instead of redacting or blacking out the information when appropriate), the bill could force police agencies to spend millions of dollars to install new computer software and to redesign reports in order to create two sets of documents — one for public release and one for the criminal justice system to operate fairly.

California

California State Sen. Ron Calderon has introduced SB 690, legislation that was expected to allow District Attorneys to release personal information on arrestees and parolees, which an Attorney General Opinion had said violated the right to privacy. Unfortunately the bill appears to have become restrictive to the point that private investigators and the public might have more difficulty obtaining police reports under the California Public Records Act.

Notwithstanding any other law, a local agency may, in response to a written request made pursuant to Section 6253 of the Government Code, provide information from a local summary criminal history, if the person making the request declares under penalty of perjury that the request is made for a scholarly or journalistic purpose and the release of the information would enhance public safety, the interest of justices, or the public’s understanding of the justice system.

California Assemblymember Dave Jones has submitted AB 1168, a bill regulating public records which contain social security numbers.

The California Public Records Act requires state and local agencies to make their records available for public inspection unless a record is exempt from disclosure. The act exempts from disclosure, among others, any record that is a personnel, medical, or similar file the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
This bill would provide that, notwithstanding these provisions, a local agency shall not disclose to the public any record that is required to be open to the public by any provision of law if that record displays more than the last four digits of any social security number.

SB 216 would allow only the last 4 digits of a judgment debtor’s social security number to appear on public records. SB 644 is similar.

A vague bill, AB 703 requires that records containing social security numbers be destroyed.

Last year’s failed bill, SB 1666, has returned in the form of SB 328, Personal Information: Prohibited Practices.

The bill would also prohibit any person, as defined, from, among other things, obtaining or attempting to obtain, or causing or attempting to cause the disclosure of, personal information about a customer or employee contained in the records of a business through specified methods, such as by making false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, with specified exceptions.

New Mexico

Two bills at the state legislature would make private records that are currently public. New Mexico publicly-owned utilities must provide copies of all its records, under current law, but the presumption of openness that has characterized the release of government records shifting toward closure.

One proposed law, HB 279, from Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, would prohibit the disclosure of consumers’ nonpublic personal information.

Another bill, House Bill 1027 from Rep. Patty Lundstrom, D-Gallup, would exempt from the right to inspect public records any law enforcement record of “individuals accused but not charged with a crime,” discharge papers of a veteran and “the residential addresses of customers of municipal or county utilities.”

Is your state government proposing similar legislation?

A few weeks ago I wrote that the California State Controller ordered the removal of social security numbers from state tax liens. Now, Debra Bowen, the new California Secretary of State, has shut down the online UCC filings database in order to remove social security numbers from the UCC filings index.

We have temporarily disabled the capability to perform online searches and orders. In order to prevent identity theft and protect the personal privacy of people whose information appears in documents filed with the Secretary of State, we are in the process of removing social security numbers from all copies and electronic images of UCC filings made available to the public.

Records researchers and private investigators (and anyone else) who requests the paper copies, will receive them with the social security numbers removed. Bowen is not explicit on whether she will redact the complete SSN, but based on the bruising fight private investigators had with her last year over the business records pretexting bill, SB 1666, I expect she’ll remove as much personal information as the law will allow.

What effect might this restriction of public records have on private investigators, businesses and attorneys conducting due diligence, background screening or judgment collection?

The New Jersey Courier-Post has added statewide New Jersey Superior Court Criminal Conviction Records to its collection of public records databases, called DataUniverse. The collection of DataUniverse databases include some private investigators frequently use: New Jersey Death Index, Department of Corrections inmates, real property ownership, state employees and disciplinary records of doctors. As always, check the source material, don’t assume these records are inclusive or accurate.

Media organizations have charged ahead developing databases of public records, often of indexes and documents the government has not released or developed. The Florida Herald Tribune Teacher Misconduct Database is built from court records and administrative complaints filed with the Education Practices Commission against teachers for various types of misconduct. Searchable by name or location, the site returns a summary of the matter and copies of documents. The data covers 1997 - 2005. The state is scrambling to develop its own online database, a good outcome of the Herald Tribune project. The Florida government site may be available sometime in 2007.

Reported in Lucas Grindley.